MEMORY IS A MULTIFACETED ELEMENT of human cognition, consisting of both long-term and short-term capacities and involving the process of encoding. Memories can be either verbal (i.e. lists of names) or non-verbal (i.e. face recognition). There are many techniques for memorizing and retaining information, including various organizational strategies and the use of mnemonic devices.

Organizing Through Meaning

Learning information often occurs by making meaningful associations between new material and memories already stored in the brain.
One technique of organizing through meaning, called "method of loci", utilizes visual memory and association to remember pieces of information. Begin by picturing in your mind a familiar path that you walk and landmarks that you pass. For each landmark, make a mental connection between the information to be remembered and the object along the path. For example, if you were trying to remember State capitals and along your path there was a dentist’s office and a hot-dog vendor, you could remember DENver, Colorado when you picture the DENtist and Frankfurt, Kentucky when you see the hot dog (a.k.a."frankfurter") vendor.

Take a minute to look at the images above. Try to remember the objects in the red boxes by creating a mental picture of the objects and the street image they are connected to. You will be quizzed later.

Visual Organizing

Information can also be remembered by creating visual images associated to the item to be learned. This technique can be used in several ways. One way is to visualize a diagram or chart that organizes the information. If the information to be remembered is not already organized in such a way, try drawing something yourself, like a flowchart that you can picture in your head.

This is an example of how somebody might remember someone whose last name is Green. Can you come up with an image that would help you remember the name Tarryn?

Another method is to imagine a silly or vivid scene that incorporates the item to be remembered. Essentially, you are creating a mental snapshot to recall at a later time. For example, think of a really memorable advertisement. Isn’t it easier to remember what product the ad is selling when the images involved are humorous or unusual in some way?

Organizing Through Similarities

This technique is different from others in that it does not rely on images as much as it does on mental organization. By grouping items or concepts into groups based on their similarities or related characteristics, you can put information into mental boxes that can be labeled in any way you find the most useful.

Drag the sports listed above into the boxes to practice organizing through similarities.

The idea behind this technique is that everyone has different categories that information can be grouped into. If you were trying to remember names of students in a class, they could be grouped into names of relatives, names of friends, names that can be male or female, etc. The groups that are most effective in retaining information will vary with each individual.

Acronyms

Acronyms are used to remember lists of words by taking the first letter from each word and using them to form a single word. This technique can be used for random list or for lists that need to be remembered in a specific order. Often, all it takes is the first letter of a word to recall information which takes less energy than remembering an entire list. For example the word "scuba" is actually an acronym for Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus, but SCUBA is a lot easier to remember than the entire string of words that it stands for.

Acrostics (Sentences)

The use of acrostics is similar to acronyms in its methods, but rather than creating a word from the first letter of each item in a list, acrostics utilizes the first letters of each word to create an entire sentence. This technique is particularly useful when a list of words needs to be remembered in a specific order, but the order does not lend itself to the creation of a new word, as with acronyms. Of course, this technique can be used for unordered lists as well. For example, many of us remember using the acrostic "Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally" to remember the order of operations in mathematics (Parentheses, Exponents, Multiplication, Division, Addition, Subtraction).

Rhymes

The use of rhymes relies on making information memorable by creating rhymes or songs that are simple, but rhythmic and catchy. The most common application of this technique is to put new words to a familiar song, like a nursery rhyme or Christmas song. Most songs use rhymes as part of the lyrics, but rhymes alone can also be effective, even without music, such as "'i' before 'e' except after 'c' and when the sound's 'a' as in neighbor and weigh" or "thirty days has September, April, June, and November. All the rest have thirty-one." Can you think of any others?

One Last Thing...

Do you remember the street scene from earlier? Can you remember what pictures were connected to the following images?

Grocery Store
Bench
Tree
Church
Gas Station

What about the boxes for the sports? Can you remember the sports listed according to the following categories?

Indoor Sports
Individual Sports
Team Sports
Sports that Use Balls

Contributed by Tarryn Smith
Graduate Student
Department of Educational Technology, San Diego State University